


A man survives

by Marcus_S



Series: Arya Stark's Multiverse [13]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Assassination Plot(s), Assassins & Hitmen, Canon Divergence, Dragons, Fluff, Poison, Politics, Post-Canon, The House of Black and White, The Red Keep (ASoIaF), plumbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29159631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S/pseuds/Marcus_S
Summary: A man who we know survives the fall of the Red keep. Head injuries mean he is however not aware who he is, his subsequent life is not simple.
Relationships: Jaqen H'ghar & Sandor Clegan, Sandor Clegane & Arya Stark
Series: Arya Stark's Multiverse [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779334
Comments: 12
Kudos: 8





	1. A man survives

**Author's Note:**

> All characters belong to GRR Martin, but the story is © M Stanson 2021.
> 
> There’s precious little plot in this, but it’s the best my addled brain can come up with at present

He could feel that he was trapped; there was weight on his back and his legs and across his shoulders. He had no idea how he had come to be trapped. The pressure was not painful, it was constricting his breathing but not sufficiently he was worried he’d suffocate, but he was clearly trapped. He knew he was just going to have to lie there and wait until someone dug him out, or he’d eventually die of lack of water. He was prepared for that to be some time and it was, he either fell asleep or passed out at least twice that he was aware of before he heard a voice. He couldn’t make out words but the tone was ‘I’ve found another body’ and it wasn’t long before he could feel the weight decreasing. Stone was removed from round his head and someone gave him a flask, he drank. Uch, sour wine, still fluids. People kept working and more stone was removed, eventually he was free. He stood up and fell down again, on the third attempt he stayed upright, by which time the people had backed off, clearly they didn’t like the look of him. He started to walk and people kept backing off so when he just kept going he ended up leaving the ruins of the castle behind and moving into the city. Things weren’t much better there; clearly the place had been destroyed by something. Finally he found an inn that was intact and open and then he found he had no money and that however much people were afraid of him he was getting nothing without coin. So he returned to the streets and kept walking. After several hours he had cleared the city and was on a road that ran largely north. Eventually he got tired enough and stopped to sleep leaning against a tree.

When he woke the sun was well up and a man with strange hair was standing looking at him. “Who are you”.

“I was just thinking of asking you the same question”.

“Well I fucking well asked first”.

“My names Jaqen H’ghar, and yours”.

There was a silence, a long silence, then “I don’t know”.

“What do you know, where you came from, how you got hurt”.

“I’m hurt”.

“You’ve burn scars all over your face that are years old, but the back of your head looks like it’s been smashed in recently, maybe yesterday at King’s Landing”.

“Dunno, where’s King’s Landing”.

“Back up the road about 10 miles, there was a big fight there yesterday, looks to me like you were involved and got hit on the head”.

“Got dug out of a collapsed building yesterday”.

“Big place, a castle”.

“Looked like it was once, well trashed now though”.

“The Red Keep at Kings’ Landing, you were involved in the fighting. Any idea who’s side you were on”.

“No”.

“That damage to the back of your head, looks like it’s robbed you of your memory”.

“Yes”.

“Had anything to eat recently”.

“No, I’ve no coin”.

“I could get you some food and wine. Can you stand up”.

The man levered himself to his feet, he felt stiff and bruised, but there was no major pain. “Looks like it”.

“Come on then”.

Together they walked about a mile to an inn. The man who called himself Jaqen H’ghar paid for meat and bread and ale, wine was in short supply apparently. The man noticed that people were still avoiding him, but he’d realised that he was a lot bigger than most of them, that he was wearing a hauberk and the man who called himself H’ghar had said his face was scared, so that so that didn’t seem unreasonable. When they’d eaten and sat around H’ghar asked him if he was fit to walk some more and they left the inn and headed on down the road.

Steadily they walked north and slightly west, through a town called Rosby, then to a port called Duskendale. It wasn’t that big a place but there were ships and the man who called himself H’ghar got them on one to Braavos. It wasn’t a big ship and the journey wasn’t that comfortable. By this time it had become clear to both of them that the man wasn’t going to remember anything important any time soon. He wasn’t entirely happy at the man who called himself H’ghar taking him overseas, but he pointed out that it was where he was going, his home, and that if the man wanted his help he should come with him. Since the man had no coin, no name, no idea who his friends might be he didn’t think he’d got any choice. There’d been a war, the forces of Queen Cersei who’d held the Red Keep had lost. The man had come out of the Red Keep so he was probably one of Cersei’s men. His armour, which they’d conveniently lost at an inn one night, suggested he might have been someone important enough for the winners to be looking for him for revenge so leaving the country might well be saving his skin.

The ship arrived in Braavos. The man was impressed. He was even more impressed when the man who called himself H’ghar took him to a large building and as they were let in it became plain that the man who called himself H’ghar was a person of importance here. He was made welcome, he was given good food; they’d not eaten well while travelling, he was given new clothing. His head was examined and treated.

The man who called himself H’ghar came into his room.

“I have an offer to make you”.

“Yes”.

“We are a religious order; if you agree to join us we will train you. You will live here under the protection of the order while you are training. No one from Westeros will come here and take you back, you will be completely safe. You will have a life with us for the rest of your days and it will never matter that you cannot remember who you were because here you are just ‘a man’ as am I”.

The man sat there for a few minutes, “Why not, what have I got to lose”.

“Nothing”.

And thus began the training of another man in the Order of Black and White.


	2. A man is given a task

Some years later two men met in the Room of Faces. The man who gave the orders spoke to the man who took them.

“The god has a task for you, a wrong must be righted”.

“Get to the point, who do I kill and how am I being disguised this time”.

The man who gave the orders thought for a second that maybe this wasn’t a good idea, but his sense of irony won out; the opportunity was too good to miss. “Arya Stark and the Waif”, he pointed at a face on the wall.

“A fucking girl, oh that’s going to be fun. I’m a man remember, isn’t that what you’re insistent on”.

“But you are also a waif, a stray someone without roots or a home”.

“Go on rub it in, make me feel really good about my life”.

“If you wish to leave the order you may do so at any time”.

“You know fucking well that’s not really an option. I have no money and the chances are if I return to Westeros I’m a hunted man”.

“Life is full of bad options, sometimes all you can do is choose the least worst”.

“Yes, go on then get the face down. Do I get a bit of time to adjust to the lack of tackle or is this a rush job”.

“I’m afraid you must leave for King’s Landing on the next tide. Your target Arya Stark is known to be arriving there very soon and we have no idea how long she will stay before returning to the lands in the West”.

“Lands in the West, now you are pulling my soon to be non-existent member”.

“Apparently not, Lady Stark left Westeros soon after the conclusion of the War of the Iron Throne in search of what lay beyond the Sunset Sea. It appears the answer is a large mass of land known as The Dragon Lands. She has returned with a number of ships loaded with exotic goods and two very large dragons which she is in communication with. Reports are unclear at present but it appears this may actually be an invasion, with the dragons taking control of Westeros in Arya Stark’s name”.

“Well that explains why she has to die then, we must be getting a good price for this job”.

“Actually she has to die because she broke the rules of the order and killed without permission”.

“Bet we’re still taking someone’s money to do the job”.

The man did not reply, he had learned the other man had a compulsion to complain about everything. He was however an effective if not always subtle killer. This would not be a simple task however so he had reservations, he suspected that two people might well die, but wasn’t that what happens to everyone in the end.


	3. A man develops a plan

Several days later a waif got off a ship in King’s Landing and found herself looking at four large multi-masted ships with fore and aft sails of a type never before seen in Westeros or Braavos that were moored together on the adjacent dockside. She was obviously gawking, but she wasn’t the only one, most of the passengers from Braavos, as well as the crew had stopped to watch what was going on. A dockside labourer stood next to her took the opportunity for a brief rest.

“Impressive aren’t they, half as big again and twice as fast as anything built in these waters and they go to windward ten maybe fifteen degrees better that a square sail. Even more impressive if you look at the crew, skinny little runts the lot of them”.

A waif looked across at the group of men on the quayside. They weren’t just small they were a strange colour and their faces had a funny look to them. A waif couldn’t put her finger on it at first, then they realised their eyes were party hooded. A waif turned to face the docker, “Do they speak common, or anything we can understand”.

“No, but since Lady Stark of Winterfell came across with them she’s doing all the talking”.

“Lady Stark as in Arya Stark, the Queen of the North’s sister”.

“One and the same, clearly these are the folk she found, oh and the dragons”.

“Dragons, I thought that was just a rumour”.

“Oh no my girl, the two biggest dragons ever seen. If you’d have been here for the war and seen the one the Targaryn queen used to burn King’s Landing down, you’d have been impressed. These two are twice, or maybe even three times its size. One story I’ve heard is that it’s them that’s in charge. They decided to come here and she’s just tagging along to interpret and sell a few knick-knacks off the boats”.

Well that was interesting. A waif was about to move away when a party of five came down the gangway of the largest vessel. A women and four men, the woman in long clothing in vivid colours and patterns, the men in baggy pants and close hose on their lower legs, then large jackets with big stiffened shoulder pads. They were obviously the escort as they each had a pair of swords stuck in their waistbands.

The docker kept talking, “There she is, Lady Stark, off to talk to her brother and sister about the new order”.

“New order”.

“Yes, the dragons intend to stop here and they say the King, Queen and Lords have to give up their armies and castles and provided them food when they require it. Lady Stark’s talking to the them, explaining how it works out West, The Dragon Lands they call it; lots of trade, no wars, why they dress better than we do and their ships are larger and better, no time wasted on war and destruction”.

“Sounds too good to be true”.

“Well I’ve no doubt it will be good for those who can make money, but I don’t see the Lords liking it much, their power gone up in puff of dragon smoke”.

While the docker rambled on a waif got a good look at Arya Stark, small, fairly pretty, certainly flashily dressed and equally certainly well protected. A waif wasn’t going to walk up to her and knife her before she knew they were there because the four round her were keeping everyone at six feet distance as they walked off down the quay and besides they knew that Arya Stark had also been trained at the House of Black and White. A waif moved away went into town, found themself somewhere to stay, a room in a fairly decent inn. A waif spent the next few days just hanging around and listening. The story was consistent; two dragons would divide Westeros in half, eating a few cattle periodically, which would be provided by the King and Queen; armies to be disbanded, castles to be ‘allowed to decay’, the small folk to be allowed to concentrate on farming and commerce. It all sounded too good to be true unless you were a Lord dependant on your military power for your status. Both the Starks, King and Queen alike were saying unless we wanted a repeat of the torching of King’s landing we were best agreeing, but inevitably there were those, the Lannisters and the like who thought otherwise.

In the meantime a waif also found out Arya Stark’s routine. She was living on the largest ship, The Albatross, doing her trading from the ship, travelling to the palace in the remains of the Red Keep roughly every other day to talk to her brother and sister and the other Lords. Sometimes she appeared in very fancy long clothing, other times in gear more like the men she was with. Getting information about the ships and crew was difficult, they were sociable enough but spoke very little common, they had papers with them with a few phrases to buy food and drink. The one thing a waif did notice was that there was a girl with her, about eight or nine who went with her when Arya was dressed more like a man. Otherwise the girl was on the ship’s deck, except a couple of times she’d come down onto the dockside. Clearly this wasn’t allowed as when she was spotted she was shouted at and chased back onto the boat.

With very few other options a waif wondered if they could get near enough the boat and grab the girl and then use her to get Arya off the ship and away from her bodyguards. The other question they couldn’t answer was how long they’d got. It was open knowledge the ships would sail back West at some time, but again when was just different people’s guesses.

A waif decided they weren’t going to get on board the ships so they’d have to approach the problem from the other end. A waif started to hang around the Red Keep looking for a way to get in amongst the servants. It took a few days; including skipping eating so they lost a little weight and looked suitably hungry, plus messing their clothes so they looked like they were sleeping on the streets. Be in the right place, look hungry and tired and a bit desperate and offer to do any work asked just for a crust or two. Within the week they were in and out of the kitchens carrying things, another few days and they were carrying things into the main buildings. The food was poor and no one was offering them money for the work they were doing, but despite the years since the war, King’s Landing still had a good proportion of folk doing this, so they didn’t look in the least out of place.

The trouble was nothing they heard or saw made anything seem any easier. They weren’t going to be allowed anywhere near the food, the things they carried weren’t as salubrious, nor were they going to get anywhere near Arya Stark. The one good thing was it became obvious that she wasn’t going home any time soon. Both the politics of the change of power to the Dragons and the business of selling the cargo from her ships wasn’t going that smoothly. Unsurprisingly the Lords were unenthusiastic about the whole project, the idea of swapping war for trade made them not just nervous but downright scared. Most realised they would be replaced by merchants quite quickly. Alongside this the things brought in on the ships were examples of the more sophisticated society of the Dragon Lands. There was equipment for moving water around a house, for that they needed water to get to the houses and most of King’s Landing still used a local well. In the Dragon Lands the water came off the hills to the city down stone tracks called aqueducts then went through the city in tunnels to people’s houses. Then a second set of tunnels took the waste out the other way to the sea. None of this was going to happen next week, so Arya Stark would be around for a lot more than a few weeks.

Then a waif’s luck changed, the young girl, she discovered she was called Titu, started to appear around the Red Keep. It was plain she was allowed a lot of freedom; she started appearing in the kitchens. She was just a normal nosy kid; she’d scrounge a bit of food and try and ‘talk’ to the staff with hand gestures and a few words of common. Some of them weren’t happy to see her, but she kept from under people’s feet and it didn’t take long for her to find a few who would let her watch them and practice her common tongue sentences.

So a waif had the girl within reach at least occasionally. If they was going to use her to get her mother away from the guards and the palace they needed somewhere to take her. They started arriving earlier in the morning and taking the later parts of the day off. Then they could look round the city. It was still a wreck over large areas, collapsed buildings forming warrens, some of which were occupied, usually if there was enough roof left; others completely empty. A waif found one that suited them nicely; there was even a left over roof timber that would do to tie the girl to. So they would get hold of the girl and then tell Arya to come alone if she wanted to see her daughter again. In effect she would be a sacrifice, her life for Titu’s.


	4. If plan A Fails always have a plan B

So now all a waif had to do was make friends with the girl Titu. That wasn’t difficult, she was nosy and friendly so if you spoke to her she spoke back, badly, which was good because you could prolong the conversation ‘helping’ her get her pronunciation right improving her vocabulary; “We say Westeros, not westeRos, that’s called a cauldron” that sort of thing. Steadily over a week or two they got to be acquainted.

Then came the tricky bit, finding a lure to get her out of the keep. A waif had seen the response of the armed men to Titu’s leaving the ship and assumed it would be the same if she left the area of the Red Keep, but they also remembered that Titu had left the ship repeatedly, despite clearly having been told not to. Slowly they started mentioning places in the city, the sort of place that might interest a young girl, the sweetmeat market for example. Eventually it happened Titu took the waifs hand, looked twice round quickly and pulled her out of the kitchen door. “Please sweetMeats”.

A waif nodded made a shush motion with one finger and lead the way out of the back of the keep into the city. A few hundred yards down the road a knife pricked Titu’s side and a waif muttered “Quiet” in her ear. When Titu didn’t try and fight a waif kept walking a few more yards. “Left” and they turned off the road up an alley. A waif walked Titu round in circles a few times before they entered the warren. When they got to the final room, or what was left of it, the waif got her up to the roof timber, then there was a fight. The waif had to put their knife away to tie the girl up and Titu started off by trying to attack them then tried to run, but the waif caught her. A waif may not have been that big but they were bigger and stronger than Titu, so she got hit a couple of times and then tied roughly to the post. When they was sure she’d got her secure a waif went back and repeated the task more securely, but also so it was more comfortable, they had not come to hurt Titu.

A waif removed the poison from her baggage and put it out on a large flat stone in advance, then they returned to the Red Keep.

Well that had set the cat amongst the pigeons. Titu Stark was missing, the city was being turned upside down, Arya Stark was openly proclaiming vengeance on those involved. A waif walked back into the Red Keep ready to run like the hounds were after them if anyone mentioned they’d been seen with Titu, but clearly no one had noticed.

It only took a couple of hours and a waif was able to drop a note where they knew it would be found telling Arya Stark where to go, alone and then that she was to follow the whistles. A waif could check Arya wasn’t bringing people with her and lead her to Titu. Then they could agree the exchange. The message had a sigil on it a waif knew Arya would recognise, that would ensure she knew they had no interest in killing Titu as long as they got her.

A few hours later, deliberately about an hour before dusk a waif was waiting. Arya Stark came dressed like one of the foreign men, but it was obvious it was her from the size. A waif scouted round her, no one in sight so the first low whistle, had she heard it, yes she came towards them. They lead her round in a couple of circles so they could cross her tracks and check for any shadowers; there were none so as it approached dusk they lead her to the warren and Titu.

A waif moved into the final room, Titu was still tied to the post, a waif stepped close to her “Relax girl, your mother’s coming and then you can go”. Just for a second they wondered if she’d understand that much, but Arya was coming into the room so they didn’t have time to concentrate on the girl.

“All right, whoever you are, you let my daughter go and I might let you have a head start when you run for it. Otherwise you die here, quite probably very very slowly and then the dragons go to Braavos and burn your house to the ground. I know you’re not who you look as though you are because I know your face; it was me who put it into the room you took it from. Someone didn’t think this process through, or they thought they could get away with a little joke. Their real mistake though was coming after a Stark, my brother dreamt about all this a month ago, we even know who paid you, which you probably don’t”.

“I still hold your daughter”, a waif moved over towards Titu and pulled out a knife, but as they did so they thought things through. If the King had dreamt all this and Arya Stark was stood there as cocky as she was there had to be a bad ending for them and a good one for her.

As though Arya could read their mind she replied “You’re just beginning to work out the result of trying to prove my brother’s visions false. As I said, I know there’s a real person behind that face so why mess about, take it off and let me get a good look at you”.

“I’m not stupid, that would make it too easy for you, if you’ve worked with faces, you know I’ll not be able to watch you as it comes off and that’s all you’ll need. No you’ll need a better line than that”. They were right next to Titu and the knife was an inch from the girl’s throat. The look on the girls face said that if this was a setup she certainly didn’t have any confidence in the outcome at this minute.

“So how do I die, you think you can take me in a fight in the dark, the wearer of that face made that mistake the first time”.

“No I expect you to drink the poison in the bottle in front of you”.

“Mmmm, yes that’s at least a credible plan. I know it doesn’t work, but I have to admit I’m not sure exactly how I persuade you of that, I just know I do and if I do I think I’m more interested in knowing who you are than killing you”.

A waif was thinking as fast as they could, it was going dark, their plan had been to have Arya dead before that happened, she was just going to have to stab the girl to provoke a reaction.

“I once had the opportunity to kill someone in cold blood you know. A man called Sandor Clegane, I couldn’t do it, it’s very hard killing someone if you have to think about it, it needs to be an immediate action unless you’re a total psychopath and total psychopaths can’t stop themselves killing so they get weeded out from the House of Black and White during training, usually terminally”.

A waif had to acknowledge the truth of Arya’s words; whoever they had been they hadn’t just killed for fun.

Titu’s voice came as a shock, “Mum right, we talKed, you bad not”; her accent was still atrocious and the grammar was all wrong, she still sounded pretty frightened, but the trouble of getting to know someone is you get to know them.

“I’ll take my daughter’s word for it you know; that you’re not a bad person, she’s a better judge of character than me, young as she is”. 

A waif folded themselves onto the floor and started to pull the face off; behind and above them they heard a slight movement and froze; the warren suddenly got very windy, a massive downdraught.

Arya was speaking “Bran said she wouldn’t be needed, but you don’t tell dragons things, even Bran is learning that”.

A waif completed pulling the face away and a man turned to face Arya Stark.

“Fuck me! Sandor! No!”.

“What”.

“Are you mucking me about, if that isn’t your real face get the second mask off fast and explain how you got it or my generosity may disappear fast”.

“I haven’t a fucking clue what you’re talking about, this is my real face”.

Titu’s voice interrupted the discussion “Person cut me please loose”.

A man turned and used his knife to cut Titu’s bonds, she moved quickly away from him to stand beside her mother. A man took the opportunity to move to a point where he might make a run for it, then remembered the dragon. The dark was closing in making running harder and the way today was going the thing could see in the dark. Resignedly he sat down. Slowly the meaning of Arya Stark’s words percolated his mind “You know me”.

“Obviously I know you, we spent long enough together I wouldn’t forget your face in a hurry”.

“Then you’re better informed than I am”.

“What”.

“I have no memory of my life going back more than a few years. I was hit on the head during what I’m told was the destruction of King’s Landing by Daenerys Targaryn. A man found me shortly afterwards and took me to Braavos to avoid capture in case I was on the losing side”.

“I’ll bet he did. What made you think you were on the losing side”.

“I was in the Red Keep, where the Lannister forces were”.

“You’d gone to find your brother to try and kill him. He was the one fighting for the Lannisters”.

“I’ve fucked things up then have I”.

“Just a little bit. Fortunately Titu isn’t hurt, a bit scared, but nothing she won’t survive. She knew what she was getting herself into and if she’s decided it was bit too exciting she won’t offer again”.

“You put your daughter in this position deliberately”.

“She volunteered, she was also told by my brother she’d be safe and she seems to trust him a lot more than I do”.

“Him mum right, now we home go”.

“Yes, we go home”. Arya and her daughter, moved towards the exit.

“So do I come with you and get executed, or are you letting me run or what”.

Arya turned back to look at a man, apparently called Sandor Clegane; “I’d suggest you come with me, but it’s your choice. You’ll not be chased if you run or harmed if you stay”.

“How much do you know about me”.

“Enough for you to want to stay if you want to know who you are, but if you’re happy in the House of Black and White then go back. Just tell ‘a Man’ that I remember and that he should stay out of Westeros in future”.

“It sounds like I’ve been used”.

“I think so”.

Titu walked back to Sandor and looked up at him “You bad not, come on” and tugged at his arm.

“Don’t upset my daughter, that’s the one thing that might make me forget what I owe you”.

A man, now again a very large man, who was just starting to think of himself as Sandor Clegane let Titu Stark take his hand and lead him after her mother as they worked their way carefully in the dark out of the rubble and back onto the open streets.


	5. Let's start again

Sandor Clegane, he kept calling himself that in his head to try and fix the idea there, sat opposite Arya Stark. It was getting late, Titu was long gone to bed behind Arya in the room Arya had been lent for the night. It had been too late to go back to the ship. They’d been talking for a long time. Well Arya had been talking and Sandor had been listening, with mounting degrees of incredulity. Finally he interrupted “I can’t imagine why you’d lie to me, but clearly someone has been lying to me so how do I know who”.

“The man probably never lied to you, but he was very selective in what he told you. Tomorrow you can go and ask anyone you like, my brother, my sister, any of the major Lords, even some of the kitchen staff have probably heard of you”.

“Oh”.

He tried to summarise to get things straight in his head; “So in brief at first you weren’t exactly my friend, but then you definitely were, we were …….. intimately linked”, at this point Arya nodded her head towards the canopy of the bed Titu was in.

Sandor very confused by the whole story completely misunderstood “You mean she’s my daughter”.

“No, do some maths, she’s far too old for that, what happened ended three to four years ago and she’s eight or nine”.

“So she’s not your real daughter”.

“I’d have had to be her age when I had her”.

“Ah, so how”.

“Long story”, Arya yawned “Today’s been stressful enough even if Bran did keep saying ‘It will all be alright in the end no one gets hurt’, I’m ready to go to bed”.

“Where do I go”.

“That’s up to you. I really need you to make a decision, me or the House of Black and White. Me and you can sleep in here, the beds big enough. The House and you go and ask nicely for a space in the kitchen and leave here tomorrow with my message”.

“I can’t believe it’s that simple, that you’re forgiving me for what went on today”.

“I’ve told you, I owe you my life, probably at least twice and you’ve been misled, I strongly suspect deliberately. There was more to this than the political execution it was hiding behind”.

Sandor sat back, his head was spinning, she was petite and beautiful and apparently she cared about him. The man had never shown any sign of caring, it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. “I want to stay with you”.

Her face said relief “Good, so Titu sleeps on the left side, I’ll go in the middle and you can have the right. Don’t push your luck tonight though”.

“With an eight year old in the bed”.

“See you’re not a bad man, I’ve known those whose only thought would have been which of us was first”.

“And later, you don’t normally sleep with her do you”

“No, but later’s complicated, for now be thankful you’re alive and you know who you are and we think you’re one of the good guys, that should be enough for today”.

“Put that way you’re right”. By this time Arya had removed some clothing and was down to a wrap round sort of shift and was climbing into the bed. Sandor removed the breeches and boots he’d been lent on his return to the Red Keep; a waif’s clothing had not really been a decent covering for someone his size, and followed her behind the curtain. He deliberately turned his back on her and moved right to the edge of the bed to keep out of her space so he was pleasantly surprised when a small warm body backed up against him.


End file.
